customer service

Laughing while driving, customer service and a great form of birth control, the week that is and was week 15 in the life and times of the Carr’s.

Driving
I love driving with the girls in the car. Aside from the fighting times, of which there are some, the girls play and laugh and talk in the most fun way. Today, I had to do some running around, so quite willingly turned it into a complete Carr family outing and somewhere on the 401, I almost drove into the wrong lane laughing at my daughter. Julia asks, out of the blue, “Mommy or Daddy, what is a Chelsus?” Nathalie and I look at each other, a little confused, and say, “Not sure Julia, say it again!” Julia, I can see in my mirror, is thinking: “What are they, new?” and proceeds to over enunciate, “Ch-elll-ssss-ussss”. Thinking it would be better to go a different direction, I ask, “Julia, use it in a sentence”, then she pauses and says, “Well, it is from a song we are doing in choir for Christmas and it goes, in a Chelsus day o. What is a Chelsus?”“You mean, In “Angels We Have Heard on High”, the line – In Excelsis Deo?” You are too cute Julia! BTW, it is Latin for, “God in the highest.”

Birth Control
When our kids were young, I would always offer them out as birth control to our young newly married friends. Of course, I was always joking because our kids have always been incredibly low maintenance and easy to handle in any situation. This is from the ones who have watched them, not from a too close to it, tad bit invested proud daddy, but nevertheless, a night with them would not likely cause you to second-guess having a child. The only reason I bring it up, is a bunch of weeks ago Nathalie mentioned to a school friend, who was having baby sitter issues, that we would be happy to watch her three girls, if she were ever stuck.

Well, this weekend our friend is going to enjoy a festive holiday party with her husband, and she will do so, knowing that her little angels are safe and sound for the night hanging out with the Carrs. Now, they are 6, 4 and 2 so not necessarily at the “large handful” age, and so far it is fun watching them all run around chasing shadows and making noises and playing so well with our girls. We are only an hour into it at this point, so I will let you know if the visit turns into birth control or not, and if I will be scheduling my snip-ship operation on Monday.

Customer Service
I have talked many times about our feelings on customer service and the simple steps you need to take when giving it. It comes down to giving the customer what they want yes, but it is a little bit more. It is doing so without attitude! This week we decided that on a non-cooking night, we wanted fish and chips and we are lucky to have a very yummy place close to us. Arrive delighted to find out that with every adult entrée, you get a kid’s fish and chips’ free. The one problem was that Julia only wanted soup and poutine, so when we ordered her the soup and fish, she was a little upset. Not a big fan of a pouting girls, I proceed to walk up our server, and asked her to make the fries on one kid meals a poutine. “Well I can’t do that, I don’t have a button for it, and have no way of punching it in” says our waitress, somewhat apologetic.

Because you don’t have a button is NOT the right answer, so I didn’t let it go. She suggested, she could upgrade the fries with my meal for $2 and I said great, BUT don’t give me those. Just throw the gravy and cheese curd on the kid meal fries, I will still pay the extra, but give me my fries plain and all will be good. A short time later, our meals arrive, and just like I feared, I get a lonely piece of fish, and Julia gets the biggest bowl of poutine I have ever seen, and when the lady brings the kids meal out on the next trip, she proceeds to dump the 10 french fries from that plate to a second one and presents it to me as if giving me a gift.

I am mad at this point. So I told her that I wanted a full order of fries for me, and that I only wanted the smallest of poutine for my daughter, then she turned and left in a huff and returned, with a bigger portion of fries for me, drenched in attitude, and just a little bit of indignance on the side. I did leave a tip, because that is just the kind of guy I am, but let me tell you I didn’t want to. The lesson in here for us all, is just because you don’t have a button that allows you to do something, find another button that is close enough and creatively modify and understand that in the end, if the customer ok with paying more for their a-la carte order, and leaves happy it is all good.

In closing
I love it when I sit down to write my blog, that I already have an idea or two to write about, and this week, when I opened the document containing my musings from the last couple of years, the first words I see are “Chuck you Farley”. You see, just as I was getting set to hit the big “submit” button on last week’s little ditty, I overheard a conversation going on between Nathalie and the girls in the living room. Now in retrospect, I should have written down more details other than just “Chuck You Farley”, so I could remember in what context the statement was being used, to whom it was being said and the all important who said it. Suffice to say, I do remember it was Jordyn that uttered the all-important question, “Who is Farley anyway?” Nathalie and I exchanged a glimpse, a smile then a laugh and both silently decided that we would leave it alone, and not teach the girls at this point in their lives, the art of changing first letters in words, to hide swear words. That would be just too mucking fuch for an 8 and 11 year old!